Pieces of Heaven.
Made of street spirits, and natural minds.
On the road.
On Earth.
QUOTE
"When I want to work, I go abroad to disconnect" (Serge Gainsbourg).
SOUNDRACK
1. Passenger, Iggy Pop
2. Hey, Pixies
3. Summertime, Janis Joplin
4. Sea of Love, Tom Waits
5. Keep the Streets Empty, Fever Ray
6. California Dreaming, Bobby Womack
7. Mad World, Gary Jules
8. Laugh I nearly died, The Rolling Stones
9. Street Spirits, Radiohead
10. Have Love Will Travel, The Black Keys
11. Maybe on the Moon, Aaron
12. Hate Street Dialogue, The Avener
13. Beaches, Broken Twin
14. Colossal Estates, Errors
15. Piano Sonata 17 in D Minor, Beethov, Willem Kempff
WORDS
Because I believe words can't express what I wanted to do with this series, I chose to talk about it through music : a 15-song soundtrack, in which melodies and poems are probably way clearer than a thousand words by me.
After all, as Ricoeur used to say, isn't the author the worst person to listen to, if we want to grasp anything about a work ?
Nonetheless, I'm going to try and translate into sentences where this series come from.
POETRY
After years dedicated to journalism, philosophy and research (political science, sociology), I had a loud and urgent need of poetry.
This emergency lead me to quit journalism, and to dedicate my time to photography.
I will always need to tell true stories, through words or photographs.
I don't think it's a way to change the world, but even at a very small level, I believe it can be useful sometimes. And it's reassuring to feel useful.
Poetry is useless. But as Deleuze and Heidegger put it : philosophy is useless, but we'd die, without it.
It's also the way I feel towards poetry.
Poetry is free. Like a gift. Such a freedom can't be totally useless, does it ?
"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one." I don't know if poetry can change the world, but I believe it can change a second, an hour, a day or two, and even a life sometimes.
HOME AS TIME AND SPACE
One of the first thing I learned, while studying philosophy and democracy, was that both needed poetry : as a land, on which they'd be able to dawn, and grow.
To many extents, photography is a rest for me, compared to words. Words are always heavy: from a story, a history, an etymology... and they always lead us to think.
These images, in my eyes, are the rest of the rest.
And we do need to rest. To live. To survive. As we do need to dream.
For a long time, I didn't take any landscape photographs. It was too naive in my eyes. And when I did, I wouldn't show them.
Now I guess I didn't dare doing it : we expose much more of ourselves by telling something for nothing. We actually expose, ourselves, by telling or showing something, for no other reason than the need to do it.
That's why I also see this series as a eulogy of freedom.
"Heavens" is a way to say that paradise is everywhere. Paradise is life. On earth. Here and now.
Even if the world is mad in so many ways, even if, to borrow Massive Attack's words, it can feel like a « Paradise Circus ». It can also embody an amazing home to live in.
"Heavens" are about a moment in time and space.
I believe there's an act of freedom behind every second you find beautiful.
Behind a window to the world. Behind a sky full of birds. Behind a lake in silence. In front of a road you never took. A parachute and a boat. The sun shining down. The reflection of the light on a building. A silky dress on a stranger holding an umbrella. Strangers in the sea. Dead branches on a river. A cold flower facing the horizon.
BEING NOW HERE
What link these pictures is only the feeling I had while being there in the moment. Something linking magic to reality.
Something reconciling myself with the world. Something reminding me that the world is not only the twisted system created by humans, but over all a huge fascinating thing. That doesn't belong to us : it felt like a whole we're a part of. A part of a w-hole. Alive. Could heaven be the countrary of a black hole !? Something like a gift ? A "present" ? Something that would only be... now-here ?..
All I hope for these images is to make people who see them... "feeling good"... as says another famous song...
